Happy Reformation Day, and Happy Halloween! For the past several year (seven? eight? - something like that) our church has had trunk-or-treat in our parking lot. We get to enjoy watching the kids in their costumes, and the kids and their parent or parents have a safe place to go get candy. We've been to this before and this year as always, a good time was had by all.
Highlights...
The weather cooperated, thankfully. We've had rain here pretty much constantly for 2 1/2 days now, something like three or four inches total. It all stopped around four p.m., and the sun came out for a while. The bonus to that was the illumination of the leaves. I think the fall colors are peaking now through this weekend, and while I wouldn't quite call it a spectacular fall, there are some really nice trees around the suburbs.
Costumes:
I think the cutest costume was an owl costume worn by a little boy, maybe 2 1/2 or almost 3 years old. My words can't do it justice, you would have had to have seen him. A couple of girls, maybe seven or eight, had a cowgirl and indian princess theme going. I could tell a lot of effort went into the costumes; nicely done.
My favorite though was a girl maybe nine or ten, who was dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. The costume was first rate, and she was carrying a dog that looked a lot like Toto. And I don't mean a stuffed animal, this was her well behaved pet, just looking around, apparently enjoying himself or herself.
And a lot of the kids wore superhero costumes, mostly store bought. Batman was there of course, along with Iron Man, Superman, Spider-Man, and at least one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
One of the cars...
...was interesting. With the trunk open and lined with big teeth, and with the dorsal fin on top of the roof, it had a "land shark" look to it. Sitting in the trunk ready to hand out candy, was a young lady in sweats (going for a wetsuit look, I think), and she had goggles strapped across her forehead and also a snorkel.
We handed out four bags worth of candy, and only saved back a few candy bars for ourselves.
Showing posts with label Costumes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Costumes. Show all posts
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Mike's Birthday: What not to do
It’s likely that Mike will celebrate his birthday today in a subdued manner at his home, Subdued Manor. But I could be wrong about that, any time now there might be a big crowd of revelers arriving for the festivities.
And you just might be one of them!
Is there anything better than celebrating with good friends, good conversation, and great dessert? And is there anything worse than the sudden realization that you just did or said exactly the wrong thing, brought the celebration to a screeching halt, and now everyone’s staring at you with their mouths open, dumbfounded?
Forewarned is forearmed as they say, and if you’ll give me your attention for just a bit, maybe I can help prevent any embarrassing moments.
It could be that you want to bring a CD to share some music, and you may be asking, “what kind of music does Mike like”? I think it’s safe to say that he knows more about the contemporary Christian music scene than I do, and while I don’t know his favorites, that would probably be a good genre to choose from. He’s also listened to a lot of what they used to call “top 40” rock music. I think he would enjoy most anything by the Beatles, and I’ve heard him speak well of Billy Joel. Van Morrison would be a great choice, of course. And if you have a copy of Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh, bring it on and let the party begin!
Think twice about bringing your Pink Floyd collection, though. A few seconds of Floyd might seem like hours to Mike. And the band Rush is right out. You might be shown the door for that.
Mike loves to talk about baseball, and a conversation about the Saint Louis Cardinals is always a hit. But if you happen to be a fan of “the team that shall not be mentioned by name” (think big city, small bears), it’s probably just as well to keep silent about that.
Mike also follows the news, but you want to take care bringing up just any old item. Say, maybe you’ve been following a story about a city somewhere where the people have long endured a major crime spree, and the heck of it is that the police force is as corrupt as the criminals; the poor decent souls have lost hope. There might be a better time than a birthday party to mention that.
After all, in a big city like Gotham, Batman would never allow such a situation to drag on that long. He would have dealt with it on day one.
And speaking of that, you might have thought of surprising Mike by arriving in costume. That seems creative, but you want to choose wisely. If I were you, I’d walk right past the Joker, Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman costumes and say, no thanks. Even if they are in the reduced bin marked half off for quick sale.
Mike always likes a good clean joke, but he’s already heard the one where a cat, a monkey, and Indiana Jones walk into a bar. Just sayin’.
I’m sure there will be dessert. But if you want to bring extra {considering the crowd of people and all), well that’s considerate of you and it would be appreciated.
If you don’t bring some kind of weird sour pickle dessert, that is. This is the day for chocolate mayonnaise cake. Oh, and don’t eat all of Mike’s cake. Not only is that bad manners, you probably won’t be invited back next year.
One other thing, Mike isn’t all that enthusiastic about fireworks. I know, that’s hard to believe, but it’s true nonetheless. Sure, maybe a few sparklers would be fun for a few minutes.
Outdoors.
But hours worth of firecrackers, cone fountains, Roman candles, artillery shells, and missile barrages? All those sparks and popping and booming, into the small hours of the morning? Mike can do without all that. He’d rather call it a day at a decent hour, and get a good night’s rest.
After all, some people have to get up early in the morning.
Please join with me in wishing Mike a Happy Birthday!
And you just might be one of them!
Is there anything better than celebrating with good friends, good conversation, and great dessert? And is there anything worse than the sudden realization that you just did or said exactly the wrong thing, brought the celebration to a screeching halt, and now everyone’s staring at you with their mouths open, dumbfounded?
Forewarned is forearmed as they say, and if you’ll give me your attention for just a bit, maybe I can help prevent any embarrassing moments.
It could be that you want to bring a CD to share some music, and you may be asking, “what kind of music does Mike like”? I think it’s safe to say that he knows more about the contemporary Christian music scene than I do, and while I don’t know his favorites, that would probably be a good genre to choose from. He’s also listened to a lot of what they used to call “top 40” rock music. I think he would enjoy most anything by the Beatles, and I’ve heard him speak well of Billy Joel. Van Morrison would be a great choice, of course. And if you have a copy of Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh, bring it on and let the party begin!
Think twice about bringing your Pink Floyd collection, though. A few seconds of Floyd might seem like hours to Mike. And the band Rush is right out. You might be shown the door for that.
Mike loves to talk about baseball, and a conversation about the Saint Louis Cardinals is always a hit. But if you happen to be a fan of “the team that shall not be mentioned by name” (think big city, small bears), it’s probably just as well to keep silent about that.
Mike also follows the news, but you want to take care bringing up just any old item. Say, maybe you’ve been following a story about a city somewhere where the people have long endured a major crime spree, and the heck of it is that the police force is as corrupt as the criminals; the poor decent souls have lost hope. There might be a better time than a birthday party to mention that.
After all, in a big city like Gotham, Batman would never allow such a situation to drag on that long. He would have dealt with it on day one.
And speaking of that, you might have thought of surprising Mike by arriving in costume. That seems creative, but you want to choose wisely. If I were you, I’d walk right past the Joker, Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman costumes and say, no thanks. Even if they are in the reduced bin marked half off for quick sale.
Mike always likes a good clean joke, but he’s already heard the one where a cat, a monkey, and Indiana Jones walk into a bar. Just sayin’.
I’m sure there will be dessert. But if you want to bring extra {considering the crowd of people and all), well that’s considerate of you and it would be appreciated.
If you don’t bring some kind of weird sour pickle dessert, that is. This is the day for chocolate mayonnaise cake. Oh, and don’t eat all of Mike’s cake. Not only is that bad manners, you probably won’t be invited back next year.
One other thing, Mike isn’t all that enthusiastic about fireworks. I know, that’s hard to believe, but it’s true nonetheless. Sure, maybe a few sparklers would be fun for a few minutes.
Outdoors.
But hours worth of firecrackers, cone fountains, Roman candles, artillery shells, and missile barrages? All those sparks and popping and booming, into the small hours of the morning? Mike can do without all that. He’d rather call it a day at a decent hour, and get a good night’s rest.
After all, some people have to get up early in the morning.
Please join with me in wishing Mike a Happy Birthday!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
All Hallow's Evening Rambler for October 31, 2009
I'm not one of those people...
who are Really into Halloween. You know, those people...the ones who spend money and put up a whole lot of decorations in their front yard. Fake tombstones, fake bats, fake ghosts and the like. Or the adults who go to costume parties. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as it's all in good fun and you're keeping things in perspective.
It's just not all that big a deal to me. My Christian faith likely has something to do with it - I've never totally understood why people feel the need to turn the spotlight on the Enemy one evening of the year. Let me hasten to add though that I am Not on a crusade against trick-or-treating.
I think it's more my reserved temperament, I've never had much interest in costume parties or big crowds. Also the neighborhood I grew up in didn't have many kids, and the houses were on pretty big lots spaced kind of far apart. We would buy candy and turn on the front light, but even on our busiest Halloween, we only had 11 trick-or-treater's, and some years none at all.
Of course there was always candy left over for us, and that was usually the highlight of the day. All that said, I have some Halloween memories...
Punkins of the past
Yes, I know it's pumpkins. I just like saying punkins.
We'd usually buy a pumpkin, cut a hole in the top and empty out the seeds and wet stringy stuff (what impressed me the first time I did that was how cold all that gook was). Then I'd draw the face I wanted on my pumpkin, and when I was little, Mom would carve it. Later when I was trusted with a knife, I'd do that. My jack-o-lanterns had the typical triangular eyes and nose, and always a smiling mouth; usually with square teeth, but at least once with pointed teeth.
Once as an adult while working at a mapping company, I entered a pumpkin carving contest. I carved a pumpkin globe, the natural creases on the pumpkin made dandy longitude lines to help in spacing and figuring the shape of the continents.
Fun stuff all that...a temporary sculpture that doesn't have to be perfect. And as a bonus, you get to put a candle inside and set fire to it!
One thing I'd like to try, out in the middle of the yard of course, is to replace the candle with a sparkler, or a cone, or a roman candle. Can you imagine?
My last trick-or-treat outing
Earlier this week I recalled the last time I went trick-or-treating, when I was in Junior High (when I was a boy we didn't have "middle school").
First, let me set this up a bit. My best friend lived three blocks away, in a neighborhood with more kids; Halloween was a bigger deal over there. It seemed he could engineer and build anything, and his younger brother had quite a lot of artistic talent. I don't recall how many years they did this, but they would come up with really elaborate spook houses in their basement. The lights would be out, my friend would be the guide, and at some unexpected point his brother would jump out and like to scare the wits out of me.
So one day my friend said, "Robert, let's you and me make our own costumes and go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood". That sounded like fun, and we both agreed it was now or never. The next year we knew we probably wouldn't want to do that.
Our costumes weren't quite like the ordinary, which was the idea. His started out as an old sheet with eye holes, the basic homemade ghost outfit. His added touch was a battery powered blinking red light from Radio Shack, which he had on top of his head under the ghost sheet. Why a blinking light? Well, why not? It was neat.
I was a walking television set. My Dad had a glass face plate for an actual television, and I found a cardboard box big enough to cut a hole for that glass plate. I attached a couple of knobs on the front of the box for on-off and the channel selector, and I used half a Styrofoam ball and a couple of soda straws for the "rabbit ears" antenna on top.
Right after sunset on the 31st, we each grabbed a bag and started to make the rounds in his neighborhood. Once or twice we'd get the look - you know, "aren't you kids a bit big for this?" - but people were nice and we did get some candy.
More often than not people thought I was trying for a robot costume ("no, I'm a teevee"), and my friend's flashing light earned some puzzled looks. We got our picture taken at a house or two. Still a fond memory, to this day.
Trunk-or-treat
We went to "trunk-or-treat" for the first time this year, at our Church parking lot (they held it last year too, but this was a first for us this year). The weather cooperated, and there was quite a turnout. About two dozen cars and trucks parked, and some were decorated elaborately. We got out lawn chairs and sat down with our bucket of candy. A lot of kids came in from the neighborhood around the church, and everybody had a good time.
Next to our car was one of the Elders, who was dressed in an old fashioned black and white striped prisoner's uniform. Possibly the highlight of the evening for me was when a family came to our car with a nine year old (or maybe ten?) daughter dressed as a policewoman...an excellent costume. After my wife gave her some candy, I pointed over to our elder and said, "Officer! Arrest that man!". She and her whole family smiled at that.
(Well, my family's downstairs watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas" DVD. I'd better go down and see if there's any candy left.
who are Really into Halloween. You know, those people...the ones who spend money and put up a whole lot of decorations in their front yard. Fake tombstones, fake bats, fake ghosts and the like. Or the adults who go to costume parties. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as it's all in good fun and you're keeping things in perspective.
It's just not all that big a deal to me. My Christian faith likely has something to do with it - I've never totally understood why people feel the need to turn the spotlight on the Enemy one evening of the year. Let me hasten to add though that I am Not on a crusade against trick-or-treating.
I think it's more my reserved temperament, I've never had much interest in costume parties or big crowds. Also the neighborhood I grew up in didn't have many kids, and the houses were on pretty big lots spaced kind of far apart. We would buy candy and turn on the front light, but even on our busiest Halloween, we only had 11 trick-or-treater's, and some years none at all.
Of course there was always candy left over for us, and that was usually the highlight of the day. All that said, I have some Halloween memories...
Punkins of the past
Yes, I know it's pumpkins. I just like saying punkins.
We'd usually buy a pumpkin, cut a hole in the top and empty out the seeds and wet stringy stuff (what impressed me the first time I did that was how cold all that gook was). Then I'd draw the face I wanted on my pumpkin, and when I was little, Mom would carve it. Later when I was trusted with a knife, I'd do that. My jack-o-lanterns had the typical triangular eyes and nose, and always a smiling mouth; usually with square teeth, but at least once with pointed teeth.
Once as an adult while working at a mapping company, I entered a pumpkin carving contest. I carved a pumpkin globe, the natural creases on the pumpkin made dandy longitude lines to help in spacing and figuring the shape of the continents.
Fun stuff all that...a temporary sculpture that doesn't have to be perfect. And as a bonus, you get to put a candle inside and set fire to it!
One thing I'd like to try, out in the middle of the yard of course, is to replace the candle with a sparkler, or a cone, or a roman candle. Can you imagine?
My last trick-or-treat outing
Earlier this week I recalled the last time I went trick-or-treating, when I was in Junior High (when I was a boy we didn't have "middle school").
First, let me set this up a bit. My best friend lived three blocks away, in a neighborhood with more kids; Halloween was a bigger deal over there. It seemed he could engineer and build anything, and his younger brother had quite a lot of artistic talent. I don't recall how many years they did this, but they would come up with really elaborate spook houses in their basement. The lights would be out, my friend would be the guide, and at some unexpected point his brother would jump out and like to scare the wits out of me.
So one day my friend said, "Robert, let's you and me make our own costumes and go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood". That sounded like fun, and we both agreed it was now or never. The next year we knew we probably wouldn't want to do that.
Our costumes weren't quite like the ordinary, which was the idea. His started out as an old sheet with eye holes, the basic homemade ghost outfit. His added touch was a battery powered blinking red light from Radio Shack, which he had on top of his head under the ghost sheet. Why a blinking light? Well, why not? It was neat.
I was a walking television set. My Dad had a glass face plate for an actual television, and I found a cardboard box big enough to cut a hole for that glass plate. I attached a couple of knobs on the front of the box for on-off and the channel selector, and I used half a Styrofoam ball and a couple of soda straws for the "rabbit ears" antenna on top.
Right after sunset on the 31st, we each grabbed a bag and started to make the rounds in his neighborhood. Once or twice we'd get the look - you know, "aren't you kids a bit big for this?" - but people were nice and we did get some candy.
More often than not people thought I was trying for a robot costume ("no, I'm a teevee"), and my friend's flashing light earned some puzzled looks. We got our picture taken at a house or two. Still a fond memory, to this day.
Trunk-or-treat
We went to "trunk-or-treat" for the first time this year, at our Church parking lot (they held it last year too, but this was a first for us this year). The weather cooperated, and there was quite a turnout. About two dozen cars and trucks parked, and some were decorated elaborately. We got out lawn chairs and sat down with our bucket of candy. A lot of kids came in from the neighborhood around the church, and everybody had a good time.
Next to our car was one of the Elders, who was dressed in an old fashioned black and white striped prisoner's uniform. Possibly the highlight of the evening for me was when a family came to our car with a nine year old (or maybe ten?) daughter dressed as a policewoman...an excellent costume. After my wife gave her some candy, I pointed over to our elder and said, "Officer! Arrest that man!". She and her whole family smiled at that.
(Well, my family's downstairs watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas" DVD. I'd better go down and see if there's any candy left.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)